College Student's Guide to a Cross Country Road Trip

College Student's Checklist for a Cross Country Road Trip

In all of the College Student Articles I will tell you what you want to have, why and I will give some extra tips. I am trying to supply the college students of today with a little bit of help for their first "college experience".
Check out some of the other ones; College Student's Guide to the Macbook Pro, College Student's guide to Ipad, College Student's Guide to Move In Day, College Student's Guide to a Successful First Month, College Student's Guide to having a fun Dorm Room, College Student's guide to "camping" and College Student's guide to memory keeping,

What you will want

Camera and Camera accessories
Batteries for everything
Chargers of all kinds and for everything
Music
GPS

Optional
Radar detector
Laptop and charger

This list does not include things that I feel are obvious. These things include a car, a driver's license, cell phone, gas money, food and of course someone to keep you company.

Camera

You will definitely want a camera. The reason that I put this first is that when taking a cross country road trip you do not want to miss a single moment. There are going to be some really boring places that you pass, however, there are also some amazing sites to be seen. Some of the students will have the already have cameras. Most probably have the little point and shoot cameras, with the occasional SLR cameras. This is not necessarily something that is completely necessary. However, in my opinion it is something that you will really want to have. Remember, if you are bringing a camera there are things you will want to have. These things include extra batteries, memory cards, and a case. On top of these things you can get creative, for example, having a tripod and wireless remote makes being in your pictures much easier. No more having to find and then ask a complete stranger to handle your camera and take a picture. You now have the option to completely do it on your own. This lovely luxury is one that mostly is represented for SLR users.

Batteries

Everything has extra batteries that you can buy. Anything from cell phones, cameras to even laptops has extra batteries that can be purchased for a reasonable price. Though it is more difficult to charge the laptop and cell phone batteries, unless they are in the device, it is still possible. However, extra batteries are immensely important, especially those that you will be using a lot.

Chargers

There are millions of different types of chargers for every battery or battery powered device on the market. First and foremost, since it is a road trip, you should try to get as many car chargers as possible. There are also car chargers that can convert the energy into an AC/DC outlet. This means that if you already have a wall charger for something you do not have to buy another plug for the same thing, you can just plug this in. Another thing that I would recommend is a 4 form USB charger. Cameras, iPods, cell phones and many other things have a USB capable charger. If you buy the four form chargers you can plug them into the car, a wall outlet, or you can charge with AA batteries or even a 9 volt. These are perfect for a road trip because you can literally charge these things anywhere.

Music

I cannot recommend enough bringing every form of music possible. For those of you that have iPods, get an FM transmitter or something along those lines to help you make it through the long drives. However, for those of you lucky enough to have an iPhone, I would highly recommend a two in one FM transmitter. They are making them now so that you can listen to your music, and then if you get a call the sound of the call goes through your car speakers. This is incredibly helpful, because you can be hands free, which is a legal necessity in some states now. Now, for those of you that plan to stay in hotels or hostels or anywhere where you will not be in the car I would recommend highly a portable speaker. These are very useful, especially when it comes to alarms. Most people do not think about it, but if you set your iPod alarm and you have it connected to a speaker, it is almost guaranteed to wake you up. If you have the extra money there are now solar powered speakers that charge your iPod while you listen to it. These are helpful for when you are sitting in the sun, relaxing from a long day of driving.

GPS

Being a person who has a great sense of direction, I never had a GPS. However, after my first road trip with my sister, who thankfully does have one, I realized how important they are. If you are going across the country you will be changing freeways and staying on freeways, which can get very confusing. If you have a GPS, you are always safer. You can accidentally take the wrong exit, and it will reroute you back to where you should be. This is especially for those college students who do not know how to read a map (and yes I know that there are some of you out there). Along with being a helpful tool, these GPS are also easy to carry. I would recommend, being that you do not know where you are staying, a carrying case for the GPS. Better safe than sorry right?

Optional Things

Radar detectors, if you have the money, are a great addition to the road trip experience. When on long roads it is very easy to get going faster than we realize. If you have a radar detector we can be told when law enforcement is near, which is helpful to alert the driver that they should check their speed. This is not to say that I condone speeding or that I myself speed, but I feel that it is a helpful tool.
Another optional tool would be a laptop. This is helpful if you do not have email access on your phone, or if you would like to actually have a real computer to check every once in a while. This also allows you to listen to movies and other things like that while in the car. They even have USB speakers now, to blast the movies as loud as is necessary while the car is moving. This is a great thing for the passengers in the car, falling asleep to a movie is quite enjoyable on a long car ride.

P.S. Have an idea for a new Guide? Have Questions for me? Email me at jacksondkaplan@gmail.com